Here’s an idea – snog your customers! Ok, that might get you arrested or fired if you take it too literally. Then again, it might not. They might like it, and you might too. It could move you closer to your customer.

Getting close to the customer is so often overlooked in the B2B market. It hurts. Neglecting those relationships is a worse crime. But it’s easily done. Actually, it’s the norm.

Worrying about the customer

The consumer world worries about its customers – all the time. The ‘service culture’ is an increasing aspect of building consumer brands in the UK. Undoubtedly fuelled by the growth of global consumer brands from the USA where a high level of customer service is a prerequisite for every type of product or service imaginable.

Even at the lowest individual price points, how you’d like your eggs served in the morning or how you prefer your coffee (¨double shot, raspberry mocha, skinny milk, frothed with cinnamon sugar and a chocolate twist¨ - no, really, I heard that one…) makes the difference between whether a customer will come back for more and tell their friends, or not. And when you consider the population of the US is about 300 million (compared to the UK’s 60m) getting the coffee, or the customer experience, just right can make a big difference to your bottom line. So they work hard at it, very hard too.

Obnoxious sales books

The result is all the tedious and mostly obnoxious sales books that tell you, ‘the customer is always right’, and, ‘the customer is king.’ They’re right of course, but it’s boring and we know the customer is king already. But do we give a damn? No. It’s a bit like telling a three year old that Brussels sprouts are good for you. Yes they are, we know that, but we’re mostly going to avoid them until Christmas Day…

So even though we know that customer satisfaction and loyalty are ‘king’, we still fail to respond adequately to those customer needs. Why is that?

Well, in the B2B market, it’s mainly because organisations of almost every size and hue are sales-centric. The businesses originate from a founding principle of, ‘here is a product (or service), now let’s sell it.’ So the business uses sales channels to ‘push’ the product into the market. If customers actually like it, that’s a bonus. But the business drivers aren’t customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention. Oh no. The discussions around the Board Room are about sales projections, sales forecasts, sales revenues, sales people… Whatever challenges the business may face, the answer to life, the universe and everything is usually, ‘sell more’.

When products sell themselves

A better position though, is when a company’s products ‘sell themselves’. Of course they never do actually sell themselves, but the term at least recognises that the customer is expressing a preference. This is a ‘pull’ strategy (as opposed to the sales ‘push’ above). It doesn’t happen very often in the B2B market, because most products/services are sold on their hardly inspiring functionality – so it’s unusual to find the ‘desirable’ brands that are obvious in the consumer world. But they do exist – look at IBM or BA Club World Business Travel – they succeed because the customer has expressed a preference in the brand above and beyond competitive brands. That’s no accident. The brand succeeds because the audience perceptions have been shaped by the company’s focus not just on the product functionality, but on the customer experience and making it both what the customer wants, and better than the competition.

But to reach that point, a business needs to step away from the ‘sell more’ mentality and start to consider ‘lifetime customers’.

The obvious example here is cars. A good car salesperson won’t mind selling you the cheapest car on the lot even though there’s little commission in it. A good car salesperson will recognise that everyone buys their first car sometime, but they will without question buy other more expensive models during their lifetime and the sales person expects the customer to come back for their next car and the one after that. A good car salesperson doesn’t sell a car; they sell a lifetime of motoring.

And in fairness, some businesses do implement Customer Retention Programmes. The cost of acquiring a new customer is widely recognised as about twelve times the cost of hanging on to an existing customer so most businesses at least make an attempt at ‘Loyalty & Retention’. This usually takes the form of a ‘discount’ in whatever guise that may appear. But in reality, the business ‘Customer Retention Department’ equates to little more than the ‘Customer Complaints Department’. You only really have contact with them when there’s a problem and it looks like you may take your business elsewhere.

Important: targets or customers?

So the B2B environment is one in which the quarterly sales target is more important than the customer. After sales service really means, ‘where’s the cheque?’ and loyalty & retention is embodied by a cash discount. It’s no wonder the customers feel jaded and the businesses are under pressure.

Ironically, businesses already have the greatest asset in the fight for customer supremacy – it’s called their brand. Now, if only they knew what to do with it…

People buy brands, not just products and services. They buy the ‘experience’, not just the functionality. And that’s every bit as true in the business arena as it is on the high street. People, business people included, form opinions and perceptions based on their experience (and those of others) and act on them.

So any business seeking to improve its customer retention shouldn’t just be trying to reduce complaints, it should be using its brand communications to shape the opinions of its audience, deliver a positive experience against the brand promise and use its reputation to maintain the feeling of trust and belonging that will bring the customer back for more.

Loyalty and retention doesn’t begin at the end of the sales process. Rather, the brand acts as the catalyst for sales long before an actual sale takes place. A sound Creative Platform® for the brand will ensure that the same experience that attracts a customer in the first place is consistent during the sales process and the brand continues to reassure and inform customers in a post-sale relationship. Why on earth would any customer leave if they’re enjoying the experience that they bought into in the first place? It’s not difficult to get right. But it’s very easy to get wrong.

By Scot McKee
Managing Director,
Birddog Ltd.

Email: scot@birddog.co.uk
Web: www.birddog.co.uk

*** Campaign Winner - B2B Marketing Awards 2006 & 2007 ***
*** Nominated - B2B Marketing Agency Of The Year 2007 ***
*** Nominated - UK's Best B2B Brand 2006 ***
*** Top 20 B2B Agency 2006 & 2007 - B2B Marketing ***
*** Top 20 B2B Agency 2006 & 2007 - Precision Marketing ***

About the Author:

An agency professional ‘from birth’, Scot McKee is a legend in his own lunch hour. 25 years of marketing experience in France, the USA and the UK has turned this mild-mannered wallflower into an opinionated and borderline psychotic champion of creative communications. Managing Director of Birddog, the multi-award winning, top 20 B2B agency, McKee has led global brand strategies and pioneered creative change in B2B organisations. His role is to drag, cajole, entice and coerce marketing professionals kicking and screaming into new ways of thinking and communicating brand value. A controversial speaker, he has addressed the PricewaterhouseCoopers Marketing Conference, the IDMF, was Chairman of the B2B Marketing Forum and is a regular contributor in the business press.